Every day in practice, during his team's special teams work, Muhlenberg coach Mike Donnelly watches linebacker Ian Gimbar, who lines up on the end on the field goal unit, do his best Larry Fitzgerald imitation as a receiver on fakes.

"He jumps and makes catches on his head, or he dives on his stomach to make a catch, or makes some sort of circus catch in a crowd," Donnelly said. "Everyone stands around hootin' and hollarin' that he should be a wide out."

Saturday, Gimbar's practice paid off.

The sophomore from Saucon Valley hauled in an 15-yard touchdown pass from Joe Carlucci off a fourth-quarter fake for the go-ahead score in a 35-31 surprise of previously unbeaten Gettysburg.

"Maybe he's not a skill player, but when you see him make the catches he does in practice, as a quarterback you know you can depend on him to make that play in a game," quarterback Dan Deighan said. "Gimbar's the kind of guy that only knows one speed, and that's full ahead; he practices the way he plays, so when he makes plays like that, it's what we expect."

"Of course this time he juggles it and scares the life out of me," Donnelly quipped of Gimbar's catch.

The win ended a frustrating two weeks for the Mules, who thanks to the conference's mid-season bye week had extra time to stew over a frustrating 17-0 loss to Susquehanna, a game in which they were held to only 217 yards — 200 under their average over the first four games — and suffered their first conference shutout since 1996.

The loss was so mind-boggling that Deighan violated one of Donnelly's main doctrines during the bye week.

"We're always told not to look back, but I thought about that game all the time," Deighan said.

Deighan and Co. bounced back against one of the stingiest defenses in the conference. Led by Terrance Dandridge's 145 rushing yards and three touchdowns, the Mules finished with 352 total yards, the most against the Bullets this year.

"We stayed positive," Deighan said. "At Susquehanna, we got frustrated and it showed in the end. Our offensive line took the initiative this week and made plays. The game is so much more manageable from a caching point of view, from a quarterback point of view, when you're looking at second and 5 rather than a third-and-10 all the time."

The Mules had a perfect 50/50 balance, running and throwing for 176 yards. That helped them control the clock for 36 minutes, an increase of 10 minutes in time of possession over the loss at Susquehanna.

"Unlike two years before, we were able to establish the run, be physical, hold onto the football," Donnelly said. "The kids bounced back and had a great day on offense against a real solid defense, and on defense we weren't as good as we'd like to be [giving up 454 yards] but we made some big plays."

The week off was also another sign that the end of Deighan's career is quickly approaching.

"I worry about what I'm going to do next fall; I've been playing football since I was five years old," said Deighan, a business and political science double-major. "But that's the case with ever senior. We have four games left, and we have to make the most of them."

Special plays: Carlucci and Gimbar (who had eight tackles and two sacks on defense) shared the Centennial Conference's special teams player of the week honor this week, and their touchdown play was the third time since 2005 that the Mules scored a game-winning touchdown off a fake kick in the fourth quarter.

In 2005, Ryan Sassaman passed 74 yards to Ryan Merrill on a fake punt with 3:54 left to produce a 21-14 win over Ursinus. Early the next season, Sassaman threw 51 yards to Matt Johnson on another fake punt with 9:12 left to pull out a 24-17 victory over William Patterson.

"We look at it as an offensive weapon," Donnelly said. "It's a high risk/high reward play, but the kids believe we can execute it because we commit to it, from the coaches to the players."

Gettysburg also used a fake field goal to score one of its touchdowns. Donnelly said he and Bullets coach Barry Streeter are used to pulling such trick plays on each other.

"I don't remember what year it was, but we ran a fake punt on them to get a big first down. Then the next series he ran one on us to keep a drive going," Donnelly said, adding, "just because you expect it doesn't mean you can always defend it."

Thanks a lot: Bloomsburg coach Danny Hale didn't do East Stroudsburg any favors when he decided to bench Eddie Mateo for Saturday's game after the former Freedom star missed a practice last week.

All that meant was an increased workload for junior Franklyn Quiteh, and the Pocono Mountain West grad got the ball got the ball a career-high 43 times and ran for a career-high 282 yards in the 48-27 win, Bloom's seventh straight over the Warriors.

It was the first time since 1997 a Bloomsburg back had 40 or more carries in a game. His yardage total was second-best in school history behind Jerry Marks' 300 in 1991.